Expanding their repertoire

What do you do when you’re a popular local arts center and you’re running out of space? You look to lease a vacant elementary school building.

Kathleen Szmit

Cotuit Center for the Arts eyes Mills school

What do you do when you’re a popular local arts center and you’re running out of space? You look to lease a vacant elementary school building.

That’s what the Cotuit Center For the Arts is aiming at as it works toward leasing the empty Marstons Mills Elementary School building on Route 28.

“What is exciting about the possibility of leasing is that we would be able to expand our educational platform, and that’s a big part of our mission,” said David Kuehn, executive director of the CCFtA. “We’ve been growing so much over the past four years our programming has basically quadrupled. For our classes, we have limited room. We need more room.”

The CCFtA was the lone submitter of a proposal to the Town of Barnstable, with the proposal now being put through the town’s formal process.

“When the request for proposals came out from the town, we thought this would be a great opportunity,” said Kuehn. “It’s less than two miles down the road. There are big, wonderful classrooms that are just sitting empty and waiting for someone to use them.”

Kuehn said that the building would allow for the arts center to host visual arts classes, create a dedicated rehearsal room for shows on the main stage at the center, create a costume shop and a space for teaching theater tech, design and building, and create a dance studio, as well.

“It is perfect for us because it is a school, and that is part of our mission,” said Kuehn.

Kuehn added that because the town has maintained the building during its vacancy following a district restructuring in 2009, very little will need to be done in terms of utilizing the space.

“In terms of the initial use, barring any unforeseen issues that come up during inspections, we will not be spending tons of money doing major renovations to the property,” Kuehn said. “If everything works out, over the course of time we have a plan to improve each of the classrooms as we are occupying the space. That might mean upgrading the heating and air conditioning, and windows, but we don’t anticipate spending a ton of money right off the bat.”

The town will review the proposal in the coming weeks, with a final determination anticipated early this fall.